Tod Hoffman

Non-Fiction

Tod Hoffman, author of four books, was an officer with The Canadian Security Intelligence Service for eight years. His most recent book is The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China’s Penetration of the CIA. He lives in Montreal.

Praise for Al Qaeda Declares War:

“Hoffman, a former Canadian intelligence officer, presents a successful, suggestive, and significantly overlooked operation in the U.S. war on terrorism.”

Publisher’s Weekly

University Press of New England 2014

Al Qaeda Declares War

The African Embassy Bombings and America's Search for Justice

Three years before the events of 9/11, Osama bin Laden sent al Qaeda suicide bombers to destroy the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That dark day, August 7, 1998, more than 200 people were killed and thousands were wounded.

Responding immediately, the FBI launched the largest international investigation in its history. Within months suspects were arrested in six countries. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted 22 individuals, including the elusive bin Laden. In February 2000, a landmark trial of four of the accused was held in Manhattan in the shadow of the World Trade Center.

Tod Hoffman masterfully recounts the organization behind the 1998 terrorist operation and the horrible carnage it caused. He also reveals the dogged efforts of investigators to gather evidence and elicit statements from suspects by tried and true procedures. The trial makes for a gripping courtroom drama where the robust principles of American justice confront the fanaticism of true believers.

This process is a marked contrast to the illegal detention, torture and abrogation of rights that followed 9/11. Moreover, it is this case that established the legal basis for hunting down bin Laden.

Reverberations from the African embassy bombings continue, with the on-going hunt for perpetrators still at large, targeted killings by drones, and the extradition of two additional suspects from Britain in 2012, who are expected to come to trial in 2013.